About palettes

The Hierarchy palette is a graphical representation of the contents in the Design View and Master Pages tabs.

Whatever you select in the Hierarchy palette is also selected in the body or master page that it is associated with. See Hierarchy palette menu.

If a data connection exists, the Data View palette displays the hierarchy derived from the data connection. The top nodes in the hierarchy represent each data connection and display the name of the data connection. A data connection provides a link between the form and the data source.

When you design a form based on a data connection, Designer builds a data structure for your form based on that data source. You can filter the nodes to work with and quickly create a form using some or all of the data source. You then use binding to link a node from a data source to an object on the form. See Connecting to a data source.

The Object Library palette contains all the objects that you can add to a form design. Objects are organized into categories:

Standard

Contains the most commonly used form objects, such as check boxes and text fields.

Barcodes

Contains a list of barcode objects.

Custom

Contains preformatted objects, such as address blocks and phone number fields.

For information about using the library palettes, see Managing library palettes.

The Fragment Library palette contains the fragment libraries that are currently open. A fragment library corresponds to a folder in your file system that contains the fragment source XDP files.

Each fragment library has an expandable panel in the library that lists the available fragments.

My Fragments

A location for the fragments that you create. You can insert them in a form design or use them to create new fragments.

Use the Style Catalog palette to manage styles sheets, and to edit and apply styles to objects in a form design. The Style Catalog palette lists the various style sheets available with a form and the styles included with each style sheet. The Style Catalog includes a different panel for each style sheet. Each panel lists the styles included with that style sheet. The first panel is the Internal Style Sheet panel. Below the internal style sheet panel are panels for each Designer Style Sheet file (XFS) file that you add to the Style Catalog. See Styles .

Use the Layout palette to set the following properties for the selected object::

• Size and position of the object.

• Whether the object should ignore the defined height and width, and expand to reveal all of its content.

• Position of the anchor (insertion) point. You can rotate an object around its anchor point in a 90°, 180°, or 270° increment.

• Align selected objects in subforms that flow content.

• Margins around the object.

• Caption position and width. You can also hide the caption.

For more information, see Formatting objects.

When you select an object, the Layout palette automatically displays the selected object’s settings. You can edit most of an object’s layout settings directly in the Layout Editor. For example, to change an object’s position, you can drag it to the new location on the page.

Use the Border palette to edit the border properties for objects in the form design. You can edit the borders individually (left, right, top, and bottom) or together. You can also specify the type of border corner and background color.

For more informaiton, see Border properties in the Border palette.

Use the Object palette to modify properties that are specific to the selected object. The object that is selected in the Layout Editor determines which tabs are available in this palette.

Use the Accessibility palette to specify custom text for an object that a Microsoft® Active Accessibility (MSAA)- compliant screen reader reads as it passes through the form. (See Making objects accessible.) If custom screen reader text is available for the object, the screen reader will read the custom text and not the tool tip.

You can also change the default order in which the screen reader searches for text to read on an object-by-object basis, and you can turn off screen reader text for any object.

For more informaiton, see Accessibility properties in the Accessibility palette.

Use the Font palette to change the font family, size, style, and scale, as well as the baseline shift, letter spacing, and kerning of the text in one or more selected objects. You can change the font properties of text in text objects, in the caption area of objects such as text fields, decimal fields, and numeric fields, and in the value area of text field objects.

For more information, see Formatting text.

Use the Paragraph palette to change the alignment, indentation, line spacing, and hyphenation of the selected text. You can also set the radix alignment for a Numeric Field object. The options that appear in the Paragraph palette depend on what is selected.

For more information, see Formatting paragraphs.

Use the Paragraph palette to create lists and to change the alignment, indentation, line spacing, and hyphenation of the selected text. You can also set the radix alignment for a Numeric Field object. The options that appear in the Paragraph palette depend on what is selected.

Use the Drawing Aids palette to specify the grid and ruler settings and drawing units. You can also show or hide object boundaries and specify boundary border style. The settings for snapping objects to other elements on the page and guideline definitions are also included on the Drawing Aids palette.

The horizontal and vertical rulers, the grid, and the long cross hairs help you position objects precisely across the width or length of a page. When visible, rulers appear along the top and left side of the active body or master page. Markers in the ruler display the pointer’s position when you move it. Changing the ruler origin (the (0, 0) mark on the top and left rulers) lets you measure from a specific point on the form design.

You can also show or hide object boundaries on the form design. Showing boundaries is useful for displaying objects that do not have borders on the form. You can also specify border style for fields, subforms, content areas, groups, and other objects.

When you move objects, the snapping options enable you to automatically position them in relation to other elements on the page. Objects can snap to the grid, a guideline, another object, or the center of the page.

You can use guidelines as a visual cue or as elements for object snapping. Use the guideline definitions lists to add or remove horizontal or vertical guidelines.

For more information, see To use the drawing aids.

The Info palette displays the metadata associated with the selected objects. This metadata is stored in the XML source as named children of a <desc> element. You can edit some metadata for the form design by using the Form Properties dialog box (Info tab).

The Report palette provides information about the form design. The Warnings tab lists errors that are reported as you work in the form design, the Binding tab lists fields based on how you defined their binding data, and the Log tab shows a log of actions reported by Designer.

To clear the Warnings tab, you must address the errors listed. To clear the Log tab, click the palette menu and select Clear Warnings. See Addressing warning messages in the Report palette.

The How To palette contains a list of help topics about common procedures in Designer. You can scroll the list to locate a topic of interest and click More Info to see the steps.